


Unresolved

by Peanutbutterer



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:56:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peanutbutterer/pseuds/Peanutbutterer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of #3 in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/204807">Five Times Elizabeth Doesn't Know What to Say</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unresolved

\---

She opts not to knock – possibly because she’s afraid he won’t let her in, but more likely because she thinks she may lose her nerve.

The door opens and she forces herself inside, making it just far enough for the exit to slide shut behind her. She feels trapped in a way that’s more than just physical, but she’s in now and she knows what she’s come here to do.

Though the room is quiet and the lights are dim, her eyes are immediately drawn to him. He’s perched on his bed, head dipped low, with the weight of it resting heavily in his hands.

He looks up when he hears her enter.

They stare at each other a moment in challenge, but she is the one to break – unable to bear the pain she sees in his eyes. From the moment in her office when she realized what she’d done, something cold and strong had gripped at her heart, and right now that force is squeezing out words. “I knew,” she begins with barely enough air.

John’s brow furrows and she can tell that he doesn’t understand.

“I knew that you were in love with me,” she clarifies on a whisper. She drops her eyes to her tightly clasped hands even as the confession is crossing her lips; she can’t bear to look at him, not like this.

The silence that stretches is thin and brittle. “And,” he prompts finally.

“And?” she echoes but doesn’t lift her gaze.

“What, that’s the end? You knew that I loved you but you slept with me anyway? Just for fun, huh? Just wanted to release a little tension?” His anger tears her apart but she still can’t look at him. She knows that he’s staring at her with eyes that are big and deep and heartbreaking.

Her words are more of a plea than an offer of truth. “You don’t believe that.”

He rubs a hand over his face and his voice is strained. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe.”

“I didn’t mean ...” She lifts her shoulders in a helpless gesture, unable to finish what she’s trying to say. She’s done what she came for, there’s nothing else she can do but accept his contempt.

John shakes his head and it’s clear from his tone that he’s barely hanging on to the last thread of his temper. “Everything you do is intentional.”

She exhales in frustration. She doesn’t blame him for thinking that, but she can’t stifle a pang of regret for how wrong he is, how little he truly knows of her. Her eyes rise to his face. “Not everything.”

“Are you,” he pushes off the bed, anger driving him toward her, “are you saying that I somehow took advantage of you?”

The thought burns through her and she raises her hands, both to deflect his accusation and dissuade his advance. “No, John. God, no.”

“Then what are you saying, Elizabeth?” His intensity doesn’t abate, but he does halt his movement. He holds himself stiffly, hands clutched at his sides. His gaze moves from her eyes to focus on a spot just above her right shoulder. He can’t even look at her. “Why are you here?”

Her limbs feel awkward and heavy, so she wraps one arm around her chest and huffs out a sigh. “To tell you I love you.” Though her voice is soft, she makes the declaration without awkwardness or sign of regret.

His breath catches and his eyes dart to hers. “What?”

“I love you,” she repeats, more firmly this time.

She can see in his face that he wants to believe, that those are the words he’s been waiting to hear, but an instant later he’s brushing them off with a flippant wave of his hand. “Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

“I know I haven’t exactly been –”

He throttles his impatience, but just barely. “You haven’t been anything, Elizabeth. You’ve pulled so far away from me I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”

“I do love you,” she insists, wishing the confession would come easier each time that she says it.

He drags an agitated hand through his hair and turns away, but not before she sees the pain. “Well if this is love then I don’t want it.” His voice twists on the words, “I’d rather have my friend back.”

Elizabeth’s heart drops in her chest and she blinks away tears she refuses to shed. That she’s lost him already hurts in a way that she can’t truly define; she doesn’t want to believe it, can’t wrap her head around the idea. “I’m still your friend,” she whispers, a statement that sounds more like a question.

“No, you’re not,” he counters fiercely. “You’ve made it perfectly clear that we have no relationship outside the confines of work.”

She bites the inside of her lip and resists the urge to squeeze her eyes shut. “John, I’m not doing this to hurt you,” she tries again, not quite sure what else she can say.

“Yeah, well, apparently it’s a rather persistent side effect.” His words are acid, angry, and sting as he no doubt intends. “Are we done here?”

She wants to flee, to escape – to go somewhere where she can work on rebuilding the walls that he keeps tearing down, but she knows that she can’t. Regardless of what happens she can’t leave things like this. Mustering all her resolve, she keeps her voice level and tilts her chin up firmly. “We’re not done until you believe me.”

“Believe what? That you’re not just messing with me?” His eyes darken and an ugly undertone creeps into his voice. “I don’t know – that’s a pretty hard one to swallow right now.”

“I’m not –” She shakes her head. “Think what you want about my intentions, but I need you to believe that I love you.”

“Right.”

His recrimination makes her bristle. “You can’t honestly think that what we had was just sex. I was there too. You and I both know it was more.”

He forces a half-amused smirk. “Hey, I understand. You were just happy to see me.”

“No – well, yes… I was.” She takes a deep breath and attempts to explain. “God, John, when I watched what that Wraith did to you, everything crumbled. I thought you were dead. And yes, when you came home I was so happy to see you that I lost it, okay?” She clenches her fists and tucks them under her arms, holding herself tightly together. “I lost control and I allowed myself to do something I shouldn’t have. I’m not proud of that fact, but I don’t regret it. I want to –”

“You want to regret it?”

“What I want to do is be able to pretend it didn’t happen,” she murmurs tonelessly. The words taste awful in her mouth.

“Jesus, Elizabeth. You’re not doing a very good job of that.”

“But I can’t,” she finishes, drifting closer to him without any conscious decision to do so. God, it’s dangerous, the power he has over her. “I can’t because it meant something to me.”

His gaze narrows. “Pretty flowery words from someone who’s been tearing me apart.”

She grits her teeth and anger finally seeps into her voice. “I was trying to distance myself, John. Can’t you understand that regardless of how I feel, I can’t do this to you?”

He throws up his hands in frustration. “Why the hell not?”

“Because –” She cuts herself off with a sharp shake of her head.

“Because why?”

“Because you don’t understand everything!” She pivots on her heel, adrenaline coursing through her. Her throat is bursting with things she wants to say, but tight with the knowledge that it won’t be enough. In the end, she can only admit the truth of her feelings. “I can’t lose you, John.”

He reaches for her shoulder and twists her to face him. “This?” He points a finger and waves it between them. “Right now? You’re losing me now.”

All momentum gone, she lets her hands drop to her sides. “I can’t, John. Landry –” She breaks off abruptly and pulls away from him again, curling her fingers tightly into her palms.

Lines of confusion etch in his brow and he pounces on her slip with ruthless determination. “What does he have to do with anything?”

Her eyes widen slightly and she tries to back up, to put enough space in between them to breathe. “It doesn’t matter. I just needed you to know that I felt it too.” She takes another step backward. Her words are coming quickly now, and she’s stumbling in the face of his persistence. “But it’s going to be better if we move on. You just have to trust me,” she pleads softly. “Let this go.”

He follows her. “No, I don’t think so. I think you’re going to have to trust me enough to explain.”

She flinches, at once feeling exposed and vulnerable. She wants to fight him, wants to argue – to dig in her heels and steadfastly refuse – but she does trust him and she needs him to trust her in return.

The confession is rushed – pried from her mouth by sheer force of will. “I wasn’t in love with you when I insisted on your promotion, I wasn’t. But they… they made it clear that if they ever suspected that I was pressing my influence for emotional agendas – you’d be gone. They’d send you back to Antarctica in the blink of an eye. I can’t take that chance, John. I know how important Atlantis is to you, how much we need you here.”

“So that was your brilliant plan? Rip us in pieces and hope that the brass bought it?”

“Not them,” she corrects, “you. I don’t care about them. I care about you. And I need you here.” He has to see that, he has to know it now. “But after this afternoon – knowing I hurt you – I can’t keep going on with you thinking that I don’t… I needed you to believe it.”

“You should have told me.”

“Well, now you know. Is everything all better now?” She means it to be sarcastic but it comes out too harshly.

“No.”

“No,” she agrees, drawing her lips into a thin line. “We were better of before.”

“No, we weren’t.” His eyes hold steady on hers and he advances toward her. “I wasn’t.”

“And how are you better off now?”

“Now I can do this.” In the length of a stride he’s closed the distance between them and buried his hands in her hair. His lips are hot and demanding, and they’re on top of hers within her next heartbeat.

“John,” she mumbles into his mouth, fighting the well of need that is rising, forcing her hands to push out against him, “we can’t – shouldn’t – this –”

“No,” he hisses. He spins and backs her roughly into the wall, with each step pressing harder against her, as if he’s unwilling to let a sliver of space come between them. His fingers splay across her as he traps her with his hands and his eyes. “You’ve spent the last three months deciding how we handle this. It’s my turn now.”

“But,” she protests, gasping for breath when he grinds the length of his body to hers, “this doesn’t solve anything.”

His eyes are swimming in desire and his voice is thick with want. “It does for me.”

She tries to respond but his mouth is on hers and his tongue parts her lips and she can’t even think. He growls low in his throat and then he’s everywhere at once, greedy and demanding, like he can’t live without her. Like he needs this more than he needs anything.

As he moves fiercely over her jaw and her throat, the pieces of her left cold in his wake send goose bumps rising in protest. Her head tilts to allow him access to more skin and her hands slide down to clutch at his waist without any guidance from her. Ever since that night she’s felt the ghost of his lips and she’s ached for him, for this. Now he’s here and it’s real and, god, she only wants more.

The moment John’s lips reach the collar of her shirt, his fingers are at the hem and tug it impatiently off. The rapid assault leaves her hands by her shoulders, but he’s back again before the cloth hits the floor.

She’s forced to move, hold onto him for balance, when his mouth makes its way to the swell of her breast. The cold wall at her back contrasts sharply with the heat of him.

He pops open the clasp of her bra and she rakes her nails over his stomach, hissing when his tongue brushes her nipple, bites gently, and then latches on. When he takes the weight of it into his mouth she arches her back like a cat and whimpers.

“Jo-ohn,” she hitches as he flicks open her pants. She doesn’t remember what she was trying to say but she knows what she wants and it’s him. The kisses he trails back up her body are urgent and wild and she ducks her head to meet him halfway.

Her hands lift to his chest, fist into his shirt, as his palm slides under the waist of her slacks. If she thought she couldn’t breathe before, now she’s become desperate, and she chokes on a gasp when one long finger slips though the leg of her panties.

“So fucking sexy,” he says darkly, plunging inside her. His touch isn’t tentative and it isn’t gentle – but it feels right in a way she’d forgotten until now. His movements are harsh and insistent, but when his teeth tighten at the pulse of her neck she shifts to ensure he hits just the right spot.

Thoughts jumble and collide in her brain. She wants to tell him that this isn’t right, that it doesn’t solve anything. But then his mouth moves to her ear and his thumb finds her clit, and her heartbeat is thrumming so loud that she finds she can’t form any words. But she needs to. She needs to tell him that he’s risking his job, risking his place in the city. She needs to tell him this is irrational, illogical. But more than that, she needs to tell him –

“I love you,” she breathes as her body contracts and then shatters. He continues to move as a wave of tremors course through her, drawing out her release and prying a low moan from her throat.

Time resumes and he slows, slipping carefully from her to skim his touch along the hot expanse of her skin. He wraps himself around her and holds on tightly, pressing soothing kisses into her face and whispering mindless words that she doesn’t understand. She shudders deliciously and buries her nose in his neck, dragging her fingers up his back and catching in the ripples they form in the fabric. Finally, she admits on a shaky sigh what she’s been trying to say all along, “I don’t know what to do.”

Without a word, he takes her hand and leads her to his bed. She toes off her shoes and he eases onto the mattress, pulling her gently in after him.

His kisses are slow and intimate now, careful, in striking contrast to the possessive, almost violent assault that came before. He turns her in his arms so that she’s lying beneath him and trails the pads of his fingers over her lips, down to her neck, and across her shoulder. He hooks the strap of her bra and slides it down her arm and off before following the same path with his mouth. When he meets her eyes again the palm of his hand cups her face and his thumb sweeps lightly over her cheek. “You are so beautiful,” he murmurs softly.

His eyes are awash in emotion and her heart constricts painfully. “This doesn’t solve anything,” she reminds him.

He doesn’t answer right away, instead closing the distance between them. As they peel off clothing the kisses don’t stop, and they continue to learn what they can by touch. When they’re finally free of the last scrap that separates them, he looms above her and stares, searching her face. As he slips between her legs he meets the depth of her eyes. “I don’t need a resolution, I just need you.”

He pushes into her and her hands dig into his hips. In the end she finds that she’s learned what she needs – this is their battle, not hers.

She doesn’t hear his breath hitch over her cry.


End file.
